


The Demands of the Genre

by paraparadigm



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Humor, Varric struggles with writing, gift ficlet, other people's ocs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22294297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paraparadigm/pseuds/paraparadigm
Summary: Varric Tethras struggles with writer's block and enlists Cassandra as his beta-reader.
Relationships: Cassandra Pentaghast & Varric Tethras
Comments: 16
Kudos: 15





	The Demands of the Genre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Othanas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Othanas/gifts).



> A play on/ reference to ["The Voidling"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13077615/chapters/29916942)
> 
> With apologies to the lovely Othanas -- this is not at all what I thought I would be writing in response to the prompt, but I cannot do your characters justice, and Varric elbowed his way into the narrative. It's entirely his fault.
> 
> <3

“It isn’t ready, Seeker.” Varric looked up from his work in helpless irritation. “And at this rate, it won’t be ready anytime soon, no matter how much you breathe down my neck.” He balled up his latest effort into a tight little ball, and chucked it across the room, narrowly missing the woman looming on the other side of his desk.

He knew the second she had suggested it that this was a terrible idea. Still, she had pestered, and needled, and when that didn’t get her anywhere, she got that stoic-yet-secretely-suffering look, and Varric, against his better judgement, had relented.

Cassandra glowered, her arms crossed over her chest for added menace. “Varric _Tethras_.”

Varric winced. It was always a bad sign when she used his full name.

“I did not volunteer to assist you in this matter only to have the dubious honor of weathering your petulant temper tantrums.” She sniffed, nostrils flaring. “Stop dithering, and just _write_ it.”

Varric debated whether a jeremiad about his lack of patience for the entire genre would get him anywhere. He evaluated his audience — which, at that moment, was considering him with as much goodwill as an enraged hurlock — and thought better of it.

He’d felt like he had it, initially. He had his protagonists, anyway. It would be a story of a reclusive mage — arrogant and aloof, he reminded himself, it always went better when you made the male love interest arrogant and aloof — and… and that’s where he had slammed into a roadblock so unbreachable that the Kirkwall Gallows would be weeping with envy. He had already found a real life model for the mage, and if Chuckles thought anything of Varric’s sudden interest in spending time with him, he didn’t offer any commentary. Mostly, Varric observed from a distance: a scrap of conversation here, a telling hand-gesture there, a casual glance that lingered for a few seconds too long…

He’d embellish it a bit. Maybe, he’d make him a titch younger. It’s not that winter-spring romances bothered him, exactly, but his editor was pushing him to write a serial, and he didn’t want to switch characters between novelizations, not after investing all that time and research. He was still vaguely bitter at Hawke for how the Tale of the Champion precluded sequels, even if he did make a fortune off the original.

Be that as it may, he’d had his initial inspiration — or so he thought. That wasn’t the problem. It was plain to anyone — well, it was plain to _Varric,_ anyway, and that’s what counted — how the mage was orbiting the Inquisition’s newest asset. He couldn’t exactly blame the elf. Princess wasn’t just easy on the eyes — she was the sort of beautiful that made you stare in a futile attempt to figure out how beauty, in the abstract, worked. He’d always mocked Sebastian’s vaguely glazed-over expression whenever a statue of Andraste floated into view (mocked it relentlessly, to Hawke’s approving guffaws), but the truth was, he mocked it because he could not, for the life of him, understand it.

And now, he was beginning to suspect that he was starting to get it. It didn’t leave him with the most comfortable of feelings.

It helped that she was a bit of an enigma.

“I’m _trying_ , Cassandra. It’s not like I can simply conjure a convincing romance out of thin air.”

He had this perfect scene, too — the proverbial hook that would hint at things to come. He spied it when he was walking the ramparts with Blackwall, checking, at Curly’s behest, where the ballistas should be installed.

They’d been sitting on a bench in the herb garden below, bathed in slanted golden light. They were poring over a book, their heads bent close. Varric couldn’t hear the conversation, but he’d read the body language — hands brushing accidentally, surreptitious gazes traded, the tension of obviating polite distance with the plausible excuse of shared reading.

He had it. And then… And then he lost it.

“Varric…” The Seeker’s expression thawed a fraction. “If this is just a matter of confidence, then…” She trailed off and shuffled in place awkwardly as she fished for the right encouragement. Varric braced himself. He hated it when Cassandra got into one of her “awkward-yet-sincere” moods — it stuck to you like something contagious, and the next thing you knew, you too were shuffling in place under the fumes of second-hand embarrassment. He squashed the sudden impulse to fidget.

Case in point.

“I assure you that you have nothing to be self-conscious about. _Swords and Shields_ is…”

The silence stretched in the wake of her ellipsis.

“A steaming heap of trash?” Varric supplied unhelpfully. The moment the words were out, he realized that it was the wrong thing to say. He tried not to wince.

Cassandra’s brows drew in umbrage. “It is _not_ trash. Not everyone reads epic poetry or devotional literature.”

“Look, it’s pretty simple, Seeker. I don’t need the money. I don’t _need_ to be writing this.” Varric propped his chin on his fist and huffed a long-suffering sigh. “Call it vanity, but I don’t want to be remembered for…” The words fizzled out. There it was. The source of his hatred for the genre. That long after he was gone, the name of Varric Tethras would be immortalized on the pages of the Rowdy Dowager.

“Then write it the way _you_ want it!” A sly spark flashed in the Seeker’s eyes. Varric didn’t like it. “Much as I am loathe to suggest it, if it will make you feel better... write a tragic ending.”

He thought about it. In his experience, people didn’t want to read tragic endings — there was enough tragedy in the world without adding to it.

And then he thought of the last occasion when he’d spent time with Princess. It'd been… pleasant. No, not pleasant, exactly. It'd left him feeling... No, not challenged, or thoughtful. Certainly not giddy. But he’d even earned himself a laugh or two, and a ridiculous sense of accomplishment.

Laughter suited her.

“Let me think about it,” he said.

The Seeker pretended not to look vindicated, and failed. “If I don’t have a first draft from you by next week, I will _remind_ you,” she threatened.

“I make no promises.” Varric stretched and threw his feet up on the table. “Diamondback later, Seeker?”

“You should be so lucky,” she growled.

“Precisely my point.” Varric grinned, unrepentant. “You always lose.”

“ _Early_ next week.”

After the clanking of the Seeker’s boots faded down the hallway, Varric poured himself two fingers of brandy, prepared a fresh page, and dipped the quill into the ink-pot.

A tragic ending. Perhaps.

One thing, he was sure of.

He would make the damn elf _shorter_.


End file.
